Opinion by Kip Hansen 

On June 28, 2021, a 65-year-old woman,  Juliana Leon,  was murdered while driving home to Ferndale, Washington from her doctor’s appointment in Seattle.   It was a hot day, over 100 °F, and she had pulled her non-air-conditioned car to the side of the highway and rolled her car’s windows down when the murderer struck. 

Now her daughter is seeking justice, not in the criminal courts, which have failed to act, but in a wrongful death suit in a Washington State civil court. 

According to David Gelles  in the New York Times [ here ],   Misti Leon, the daughter, told him in an interview:

“I never would have in a million years guessed that a heat dome and climate change would be what killed my mother and what took her from me. There’s no way to comprehend that and to kind of even rationalize it.”

But, now that Misti knows that climate change murdered her mother, she has filed a wrongful death suit against  … The Climate?  Climate Change Inc.?  The Weather? 

No, she has filed the suit against “Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66 and Olympic Pipeline Company ( a subsidiary managed by BP).”

How did Misti Leon  find out who the murderer  was?  Did she hire a Sam Spade to investigate the crime? 

No, according to the Times:

“Ms. Leon was first approached in late 2023 by a nonprofit group, the Center for Climate Integrity, which helps assemble and promote cases against big oil and gas companies.”

Who is the Center for Climate Integrity?

Richard Wiles. 

And who is Richard Wiles?

Let me quote InfluenceWatch:

“Richard Wiles is an environmental activist who supports pushing litigation against energy and fossil fuel companies due to the cost of climate change.   Wiles oversees the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a project of environmental advocacy group Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD). In addition, Wiles heads pro-climate litigation news site Climate Liability News and started the anti-fossil fuel social media campaign #ExxonKnew. ”

“Richard Wiles,  Alyssa Johl, and Kert Davies sit as the board of Climate Communications and Law, the nonprofit that funds Climate Docket. Wiles previously worked as senior vice president at Climate Central. Wiles also started #ExxonKnew, a social media initiative organized by the environmentalist advocacy group 350.org that promoted legal action against the conventional energy industry for alleged environmental damages. Wiles also works as executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity [CCI] , an initiative of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development [IGSD]  that supports litigation against energy companies.”

Is Richard Wiles just a well-meaning fighter for right and justice, just another of the many working men and women donating their time and efforts to forward the things they believe in?   No, actually  Richard Wiles is listed on IGSD’s 2017 Federal Tax Form 990 as receiving compensation of $295,311 in that year.   In 2023, Richard Wiles received a salary of over $ 380,000 as President of Center for Climate Integrity, very near the current salary of the President of the Untied States, from a non-profit with total revenue of $7,570,000 for 2023.  He may receive salaries and payments from other groups and organizations as well. 

And where does CCI’s money come from?

In 2023 (the latest data available):  the first 5 million dollars came from:

Rockefeller Family Fund Inc. , $3,500,000

Silicon Valley Community Foundation , $500,000

Tides Foundation , $1,000,000

[Note:  The Tides Foundation distributes money from anonymous donors to other organizations, often politically progressive, through donor advised funds and other grantmaking programs.   Disclosure:  I am President of a very small non-profit which in the past has received small individual grants via the Tides Foundation.]

What is the evidence against Climate Change? Where does it come from?

The evidence meant to prove the guilt of the oil companies will be provided by CCI and other member groups of the climate lawsuit cabal – recycling more than a decade of boilerplate anti-fossil fuel claims used in  filings before courts all over the United States.

But the smoking gun evidence will come from  World Weather Attribution [ WWA ], a group which was formed for the specific purpose of creating evidence to be used in law suits against fossil fuels companies. I have stated that correctly – WWA does not find evidence but creates it through purpose-built pseudo-scientific models using algorithms whose sole intention is to “find” that the chosen weather events have been “caused” by climate change, thus allowing the propagandists to blame “climate change” for any damage from the weather.  In their odd world, “climate change” is the result of burning fossil fuels, thus, using this twisted line of “logic”, the fossil fuel industry is directly responsible for any and all weather damage.

I apologize for the use of so many scare quotes but, unfortunately, they are necessary because the very meanings of these words and phrases have been changed by these activist organizations to have definitions only suited for use in their propaganda.  

“Unlike every other branch of climate science or science in general, event attribution was actually originally suggested with the courts in mind,” Friederike Otto said.[ source ]

Weather, extreme or not, is not caused by climate change – climate is a cumulative average of effects, attributes, of weather.  Climate change is noticing that the average weather has changed compared to some past period.  Climate Change is not and cannot be a cause. 

WWA and its pronouncements are pseudo-science and scientific BS.

[BS – asserted nonsense, rubbish and/or assertions that are insincere or untruthful ].

Don’t take my word for it, see Roger Pielke Jr.’s extremely valuable and informative series on weather attribution:

Weather Attribution Alchemy

Attribution Stealth Advocacy at the NAS – Weather Attribution Alchemy, Part 2 – Climate Science Plays by Special Rules

Tricks of the Trade – Weather Attribution Alchemy, Part 3

Climate Science Whiplash – Why we misinterpret climate science — Weather Attribution Alchemy, Part 4

Is Single Extreme Event Attribution Even Possible? – Weather Attribution Alchemy, Part 5

Behind the Curtain – Inside World Weather Attribution – Weather Attribution Alchemy, Part 6

But that’s ridiculous!  Such a case could never be won!

Quite right, in a criminal court the case would be thrown out in a minute for lack of evidence, there would be no way to overcome the requirement of “beyond reasonable doubt “.  (Actually, the evidence would be entirely speculative).

But in a civil wrongful death suit, the standard of evidence is far lower.

“The standard in civil cases is the “preponderance of evidence,” meaning the plaintiff must prove that their claims are more likely valid than not.

According to the Legal Information Institute, “51% certainty is the threshold” for meeting the preponderance of evidence standard in most civil cases.

This contrasts sharply with criminal cases, where the burden of proof is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” a much higher standard to meet.” [ source ]

In a civil case,  this comes down to spinning a good story to a jury, and a jury that says to itself, “Yeah, it could be like that.”   Easy to win  if you pick a judge and a venue already biased against the defendant.  

# # #

The Climate Litigation movement started in a series of semi-secret meetings, the first in La Jolla, California in 2012 followed up four years later with a meeting in New York at which the attendees formulated legal approaches that might be used against energy manufacturers (oil companies) to garner huge monetary payouts for the plaintiffs and their lawyers.  There is a detailed report on this, very thorough, named:  “Beyond the Courtroom: A Closer Look at Climate Litigation in the United States ” [also as a .pdf here ]

But, Climate Homicide?  Where does that idea come from?

It comes from a paper first written in 2023 and published in 2024 in the Harvard Environmental Law Review written  by David Arkush of Public Citizen and Donald Braman of George Washington University – Law School’s Justice Innovation Lab.  The title:  “Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths” [ as .pdf here ]  Its abstract states:

“The Article finds that in jurisdictions across the United States, fossil fuel companies could be prosecuted for every type of homicide short of first degree murder, a charge it does not evaluate. It also concludes that prosecutions could offer highly effective remedies and that prosecutors should be motivated to seek them.”

Bottom Line:

The Climate Homocide lawsuit is a blatant activist effort to extort vast sums of money out of the fossil fuel industry – using cooked up evidence – shamelessly using  a poor woman whose mother  died of heat exhaustion while driving a non-air conditioned car in Washington state during a heat wave.  

# # # # #

Author’s Comment:

For more than a dozen years, anti-fossil fuel activists and issue-driven predatory law firms have been colluding to reap huge profits by staging various novel law suits against oil producing companies with defendants ranging from groups of youths, cities, counties and individuals.  

It might be worthwhile to consider whether the interactions of these incestuous activist groups and organizations might be held liable under RICO laws for  attempting to use the courts to coerce, extort and defraud oil companies out of vast sums of money.  Any lawyers out there?  (I know there are a few….)

Thanks for reading. 

# # # # #